Derivatives

tachygraphic

In the dedicatory letter to Secondino of Taormina, the pontiff speaks of the existence of another unauthorised copy circulated by fratres ferventes who obtained and divulged a text drawn on tachygraphic transcriptions preserved in the Lateran archive.

Cicero's freed slave, Tiro, is generally described as authoring the first truly tachygraphic system, one that more or less enabled verbatim reporting of human speech, by codifying a set of forms - symbols that by their shape and position represented common words.

Whether the tachygraphic writing on our tablets represents Tironian notes as known from the Carolingian period (Mentz's System A), or whether, as we think less likely, it represents either of those known from Ravenna, or whether it represents something different from any of the known systems, we do not feel competent to judge.